ALBUM REVIEW: The Unsung Mantras – Oath Of Cranes

With one of the most legendary names in doom and extreme metal attached, there’s a lot expected of new experimental doom quintet OATH OF CRANES. Boasting former members of CELTIC FROST conjures images of a particular brand of morose extremity, characterised by Tom G. Warrior’s inimitable vocals. That’s not the case here; OATH OF CRANES might have the former guitarist and drummer of the band, and they too play a heavy, doom-focused brand of metal, but the similarities end there. 

OATH OF CRANES takes drummer Franco Sesa’s passion for eastern traditional music, particularly Tibetan monk chants, and pairs them with the low-and-slow affectations of the gloomiest instrumentation he can muster, the aim being to explore the eastern emphasis on the healing effects music can have. The end result is an album that’s less a collection of songs to be listened to piecemeal, and an entire sonic odyssey that clocks in at a mammoth 107 minutes. For fans of brevity, this most certainly isn’t, especially with final piece Sannyasi Mantra eclipsing anything before it in its 18-and-a-half-minute runtime. 

It’s not just a collection of longform depression sessions with a few new instruments thrown in, though; this debut album The Unsung Mantras is very much a fully-realised behemoth, one that draws equally on the band’s storied history of heavy metal and Sesa’s own passions, knowledge and research into these practices and ways of thinking. Every song title is in Sanskrit, a deliberate choice to further evoke their themes of music to heal, and the shamanic roots of such practices and thoughtforms. 

Opening with Jivara, there’s an unsettling chanting and droning underscored by the sparse beat of a drum; it very much feels like the beginning of a ritual a la HEILUNG, one designed to take the listener out of their comfort zone and into the band’s own Daoism-inspired world. Cultures collide as this then gives way to searing doom that sounds for all the world like CONAN started throat-singing, such is the abrasive, low-tuned pummelling nature of it. Later, the two blend even further with samples of spoken word and other traditional instrumentation from singing bowls to monks’ chants. 

The overwhelming sense as the album progresses is that of a cleansing journey, those samples hinting that a good life invites a good death and that music can help along with the journey. Rudra is searing, cathartic post-leaning doom, howling distorted screeches to excise the negative, while Maya offers far more serenity with the use of singing bowls creating a soft, peaceful droning. Kali Come is almost entirely doom-free, instead a free-form experimentalism with cymbals, traditional drumming and clashing sounds that evoke the height of ritualism before the culmination of Sannyasi Mantra. 

Ultimately, The Unsung Mantras should not be approached as a typical album; it’s performance art, one that marries a deep love and passion for eastern traditions, music and thought with understated bombast taken from the glacial heft of doom and flecks of post metal. It’s quite unlike most things you’ll hear this year, and for aficionados of experimental doom and the clash of cultures, it’s hard to go wrong with OATH OF CRANES. 

Rating: 7/10

The Unsung Mantras is set for release on April 21st via Klang Machine Records.

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